Salamander
Page 40
‘He … he wasn’t in the car. Harald …’
You and his driver were to pick him up at the Propaganda Staffel over on the Champs-Élysées at number 52.’
‘Is … is that so wrong? These … these days, Inspector, what is a girl to do? Make friends, yes? Fall in love. Sleep with her lover.’
‘And borrow his car from time to time. Hey, I almost forgot’
She waited. Her heart was racing. The interview wouldn’t stop, not now. Questions, questions, always more and more of them from this one who could know nothing of her and Franz, that Franz no longer loved her, that he only wanted to …
When he handed her the photograph from the mantelpiece, she took it from him with trembling fingers he didn’t notice, or did he? He set her glass aside and she heard him say, ‘I like your perfume. What is it?’
Her perfume … ‘Mirage. A little something special from a shop I know of and would wish to have some day on place Vendôme.’
Ambition then, was that it? wondered Kohler. Louis would be intrigued, for Louis not only knew the shop and its owners well but also that same perfume since it had been made especially for a certain chanteuse who always wore it.
‘Who took the photo?’
‘A man. He’s of no consequence. I don’t even know where he is now.’ She could tell that Herr Kohler hadn’t cared about the one who had taken the photo, that he wanted something else …
‘Whose was the hat?’ he asked.
She could shrug and say she didn’t know. A passing girl perhaps, a casual acquaintance but, ah it would be of no use. He had that look about him, that look of … ‘A friend. Inspector, is this necessary? She had nothing to do with that robbery. My God, that photo was taken months ago!’
He would wait until she gave the name to him. He had that same look about him. Not brutal as so many of the Gestapo were, but unyielding in resolve. Like concrete.
‘Her name is Mademoiselle Marie-Claire de Brisson, Inspector. We … we were at the university together. The … the Sorbonne, of course.’
The banker’s daughter … Jésus, merde alors! ‘Don’t leave the city. I may want to talk to you again.’
Without another word he showed himself out and only after he had gone and she was replacing the photograph, did she notice the invitation and realize he would have seen it.
Hurrying over to the windows, she watched the street and saw him think better of getting into his car. He looked both up and down the street, then chose the direction which offered the most potential, and went after her maid. Ah no.
Kohler found the girl shivering in the Jardins du Ranelagh, but over on the avenue Chemin de la Muette. She was looking off down the avenue past an old man and his dog, straight towards the Bois de Boulogne in the near distance.
She didn’t turn when he came up behind her. Christ, it was bleak. Normally quite lovely in summer, the gardens reminded him of Siberia, though he had never been there.
‘Mademoiselle …’
The girl was shattered. She thought it was the end for her. ‘I know nothing, monsieur. She tells me nothing!’
He turned her towards him. She wasn’t any more than eighteen. The face was thin, the eyes afraid. ‘Look, Mademoiselle Jeanne, I’m not going to hurt you. I only want the answer to one question. Does your mistress loan things from that shop of hers to a friend?’
‘Sometimes.’
Kohler gently lifted her chin so that their eyes met. ‘Which friend? Mademoiselle Marie-Claire de Brisson?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded curtly. He took her by the arm and walked with her the short distance to the tearoom on the avenue Raphaël but he had no money or time for such things.
She saw that his thoughts were far away but then, having decided, he said, ‘Jeanne, go in and have a cup of that stuff they call tea. Take your time, then go back and swear to that mistress of yours that we never met. Never, do you understand? It’s very important. I’ll do my act for her if she’s still watching my partner’s car. I’ll help you out, kid, so don’t forget.’
Louis, he said to himself. Louis, I think I know where Joanne is. If I need help, you’d better come running. Mein Gott, mon vieux, I only hope I’m not too late because I’m going to have to take the time to walk up to that car of yours as though I couldn’t find her maid. I’m going to have to drive slowly away even though I know I haven’t a moment to lose. The banker’s daughter, Louis. I can’t have Mademoiselle St. Onge telephoning the woman to warn her. I can’t.
From time to time as he moved about the empty house, St-Cyr looked out on to the rue de Valois to see the austere facade of the Bank of France. It was there as if to remind him of the robbery, yet was that event but a distraction hiding what they needed most to know?
‘Two men and a woman,’ he said aloud but softly to himself. ‘It doesn’t fit with what we know must have happened here. Bank robbers don’t fool around taking pictures of kidnapped girls. In any case, why the delay of three days? Why wait until then to leave? Why clean out everything?’
As always these days, crime had to be viewed through the Occupation’s prism, warped though that was most certainly. A crime such as the robbery could have been perpetrated by the Germans for their own ends but they could have used French gangsters so as to disguise the fact.
It could, of course, have been done by those same gangsters for their own ends but without them letting their German masters in on things.
It could have been a straight crime unconnected to either of these parties, in which case each would want to know who had done it.
Then, too, the Resistance which, a year or even six months ago, need not have been factored in simply because they were such a very, very tiny element, had now to be considered since the war in Russia had driven the Communists in France to actively resist the Germans. Though not all of the Resistance was Communist, a good part of it was to the shame of everyone else.
In any case, the Resistance now could well have learned of that shipment and robbed the bank out of necessity or to teach someone a lesson. Monsieur André-Philippe de Brisson perhaps.
Uncomfortable at the thought of the Resistance teaching people lessons, he took out his pipe but elected to ration himself after all.
‘Something’s bothering me,’ he said. ‘Ah merde, why can’t I put my finger on it?’
He felt the thing was so simple, it was staring him right in the face, yet when he looked at the walls all he saw was the wallpaper and then …
Faintly the outlines on the walls revealed where the owner had hung his paintings. In room by room they showed so clearly. Some had been larger than others, some of moderate size and some really quite small—had these last been photographs? he wondered and thought they must have been, but had the paintings been of value? Would Monsieur Vergès have left such things here, knowing the Germans, if they should discover the house without occupants, would requisition the premises and use it for their own?
Somehow Monsieur Vergès must have taken measures to see that the house remained unoccupied even by his German masters.
But had the paintings been of value and was this why the house had been emptied?
Then why scatter the photographs of those poor unfortunate girls? Why not simply take them away with everything else?
Again he was forced to admit that the finger of suspicion pointed at the drooler, at the son.
With a decisive thoroughness that pleased him, St-Cyr measured and recorded the size of each of the outlines, stopping only at the smaller of them.
Then he stood in what had been the grand salon, willing himself into Joanne’s shoes.
She had lived in her imagination as a little girl. Oh bien sûr she had always been very interested in the goings-on around her, a most curious and analytical nature, but right in the middle of something, she would be a shop-girl taking orders over the counter of the local pâtisserie, a dancer suddenly or a sword-fighting pirate, a waiter. This last recollection was vivid.
Joanne had tilted her little head to one side while holding a small pad and pencil and, while she could not then read or write, had asked what they would like to order and had written it all down with quick, deft strokes and had made suggestions as to the more expensive items, particularly the wine. She could only have picked this up by watching some big pavement café from the wings The family had had no money to sit in such places and order such things.
‘She ought to have been an actress,’ he said. ‘I had forgotten how well she could drop into any part she chose to play.’
She would have seen the paintings—indeed everything else in this … this lovely house. She would have marvelled at the furniture, have hesitated at first to touch a thing. It was all so far removed from the life she had known.
She would have been submissive, shy, hesitant always—worried, oh my yes. Could she do it? Would they find her unsatisfactory?
He would have to force that little maid next door to tell him what she knew. He must question the neighbours on the other side of the house—no one had been in when he had rung the bells. He would have to question the banker’s daughter about the cat, ah yes.
Suddenly furious with himself for not making faster progress, St-Cyr dug out the smattering of photographs he had gleaned from the heap in the car and realized he ought to have had the complete sequence.
The clothes Joanne had modelled had been very good. Très chic for these times and quite classy but things … ah what could he say about them? The styles …? Skirts, blouses and sweaters, suits that were really very good but did not quite fit perfectly. Trousers, evening gowns, sequined sheaths, peignoirs and lingerie then … why then, nothing.
Though he found it uncomfortable, he forced himself to study her naked body knowing that if ever they should meet again, he would have the utmost difficulty facing her.
She had lovely breasts, full and not too big or too small. Had she been proud of them? Of course, but she would seldom have seen them, for good girls, even ones who wanted to become mannequins, didn’t spend long before the mirror. Christ and the Blessed Virgin, God and old Father Taverner, the parish priest, saw to that. And if not them, her mother and father, the crowding of an overcrowded house, and if not that, her grandmother.
Joanne had been left-handed so, while in photos of the other girls a single bracelet had been worn naturally on the left wrist, with her, she had instinctively chosen the right wrist.
She was lying on that chaise-longue staring up into the camera.
In another photo she lay on it but with her head and shoulders hanging just over the edge and her arms straining to stop herself from sliding on to the floor.
Mon Dieu, she was so beautiful it hurt to look at her knowing what had happened to the others.
The bracelet had been removed. She was totally naked, her legs taut and straining too, her eyes clamped shut in fear, a lower lip bitten, the cheeks tense.
Quickly he found the shot of her backed into that corner, having just been told what was to become of her. Somehow she had snatched up the bracelet and had put it back on the right wrist, yet when he examined similar photos of three of the other girls, they had not worn the bracelet.
Fishing in a pocket, he dragged out a small lens and was grateful that the photos had been enlarged. In raised relief, figures appeared on the bracelet. Though their outlines lacked resolution, he saw a naked young woman kneeling with her head uptilted and a hand grasping something so as to hold it in her mouth.
Was she sucking a cow’s teat?
In another, a falcon-headed figure sat in judgment while a jackal-headed figure weighed something on a tall and quite simple beam balance.
The figures had been copied from the tombs of ancient Egypt. There would be hieroglyphics—snakes, scarabs, birds of various kinds and yes, the scales of truth, the weighing of the heart and the suckling so as the soul could enter the otherworld nourished and reborn …
He swallowed hard as he looked at that thing.
Joanne had worn the bracelet in hopes someone would see it. Though he couldn’t prove this, he felt the photographer and his assistant had, perhaps, been too distracted to notice.
If so, that could only mean they had been afraid of discovery and in a hurry.
Cramming everything into his briefcase, he raced for the door, caught himself only at the last moment to leave a brief note for Hermann.
Then he headed for the rue Quatre Septembre with a vengeance, Dédé’s words echoing in his head. ‘But … but Joanne, she has had plenty of time? She might have …’
Window-shopped so as to see the type of clothes she would have to model. Of course!
Hermann … Hermann, have I found the answer?
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copyright © 1994 by J. Robert Janes
Cover Design by Linda McCarthy
978-1-4532-5190-4
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